Environment and Resources Management
Automated Pollution Control
Managing a spacecraft built to probe the planet Saturn and its entourage
of moons has resulted in the world's first electronic trading mechanism
that helps reduce pollution problems, the Automated Credit Exchange (ACE).
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Cassini mission to Saturn is outfitted
with a dozen different research instruments to orbit the planet and drop
a probe onto Saturn's moon, Titan. An early challenge of the project was
allocating the spacecraft's resources--funding in several fiscal years,
different data transmission rates, mass, and multiple power modes--among
the instruments and probe.
To support group decision-making, a system was developed named the Cassini
Resource Exchange (CRE). The academic design and testing of the CRE was
managed largely by David Porter of the California Institute of Technology
(Caltech).
The rationale behind the CRE stems from a need to ration spacecraft
resources. For instance, scientists who need more power to operate their
instruments may trade mass or computer time with another investigator for
the additional power.
Typically, a science instrument manager does not have the information
needed to efficiently allocate the various spacecraft resources to all
the instrument teams.
Since the information necessary for that evaluation is known only by
the instrument team, the teams report their resource requirements to the
spacecraft manager. Because teams' reports must be conservative in their
initial estimates to protect themselves from unforseen issues, teams have
an incentive to request resources that may exceed what their Cassini instrument
needs.
| Utilizing space resource allocation technology,
the Automated Credit Exchange system helps companies keep pollution and
costs down. |
Therefore, if the science instrument manager were simply to ask the
instrument teams how many resources they needed, the messages received
from them would lead to an excess allocation of resources.
To counter this situation, the CRE was created. It removes the need
for the science instrument manager to know the individual instruments'
requirements for the spacecraft resources. Instead, by utilizing several
principles of exchange, the CRE induces the instrument teams to reveal
their requirements. In doing so, they arrive at an efficient allocation
of spacecraft resources by trading among themselves. In essence, CRE promoted
bartered exchange between Cassini instrument teams to arrive at "fair"
market prices.
NASA funding permitted the CRE to operate through Caltech's Division
of Humanities and Social Sciences. The Cassini CRE resides on the Internet,
with every instrument scientist having a trading account. Caltech has licensed
the CRE methodology and algorithms for other uses.
Patterned after the CRE, Sholtz & Associates of Pasadena, California
established an Internet-based concept that automates the auctioning of
"pollution credits" in Southern California. The Automated Credit
Exchange, or ACE, was launched in April 1995.
ACE began by trading South Coast Air Quality Management District credits
for sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides. A Southern California based RECLAIM
air pollution credit trading market was set up. For every pound of a certain
pollutant, producers must have one credit. The credits put a cap on the
total amount of pollution that can be legally produced in the area, with
that amount becoming more stringent each year through 2003. If a company
is effective at reducing emissions, its credits can be sold to others who
may not be so successful.
Anne Sholtz, ACE's founder, reports that the pollution reduction strategy
is proving successful. "Companies are faced with having to make very
important environmental control and capital expenditure decisions involving
millions of dollars. As a result, they have to balance the cost of reducing
emissions by installing new technology with purchasing pollution credits
from other companies that have made additional emission reductions,"
she says.
"The increased number of companies participating in the ACE market
is solid evidence that the RECLAIM concept is working," Sholtz adds.
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